Tribunal Ruling: INEC can even accept a candidate from Tramadoll academy in Sambisa Forest, by Yinka Odumakin

Afenifere spokesman, Yinka Odumakin 
Before Yusuf and his disciples came up with Western education is forbidden (Boko Haram), Professor Auwal Yadudu had codified the concept in a document for Abacha’s self-succession called the 1999 Constitution which is at the heart of most problems confronting Nigeria today.

Thank God I told Professor Yadudu on the floor of the 2014 National Conference that we are bogged down with all the lacunas in the Constitution he prepared for the late General Sani Abacha. I saw my friend and brother, Comrade Dan Nwayanwu, walking to his seat as I made the point. He later told me he went to tease the Law Professor “You see people know about this thing.”



There is no evidence Abacha had serious education and the Constitution was prepared in a way to ensure that leadership in Nigeria is the only job for which no serious qualifications are required. Unfortunately, the political crass (class?) in Nigeria lacked the testicular fortitude to ask for a copy of the Decree 24 of 1999 (nicknamed Constitution) before embracing the Abubakar Abdusalami transition.

When I tried to check Abacha’s educational background, this is all I could get. “A Kanuri from Borno, Abacha was born and brought up in Kano, Nigeria. He attended the Nigerian Military Training College and Mons Officer Cadet School before being commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in 1963”.




Our Constitution was therefore tailored to make him eligible for self-succession before he expired in June 1998 and the Yadudu draft was picked from under his pillow for Nigeria to continue its leadership disaster. Niki Tobi Committee empanelled to look at the draft had only 155 days to peruse it.

Mr Eric Teniola who worked at the Presidency in 1999 has revealed that as of the time our President and Governors were sworn in at the beginning of this dispensation, there was no clean copy of the Constitution as it was still under print at Heritage Press in Abuja!


I recall calling a fellow columnist, Dr Femi Aribisala, a few weeks ago after he wrote that President Buhari was not qualified to contest the 2019 elections on account of certificate requirement. I had told the man with a fiery pen to check the interpretation clause of the Constitution and he would see that there is no educational qualification required to lead Nigeria.

The Appeal Court Panel that ruled on Atiku vs Buhari last Wednesday could have been annoyingly inelegant and overreaching in its presentation of its judgment, as there are those who hold that even if the defendants were to write the judgment in their own case, they would have put it in a nicer form. The cold fact, however, is that we have a Constitution that should not be the basis of governing decent and civilised people in the modern era.



Many Nigerians were of the view that Section 131 of the 1999 Constitution which stipulates conditions for eligibility for the office of the president to include “They have been educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent,” meant you need School Certificate to lead Nigeria.

They never bothered to check the interpretation clause to decipher what Professor Yadudu and co meant by “equivalent.”Here is it:

“School certificate or its equivalent” means:



(a) a Secondary School Certificate or its equivalent, or Grade II Teacher’s Certificate, the City and Guilds Certificate; or

(b) education up to Secondary School Certificate level; or

(c) Primary Six School Leaving Certificate or its equivalent and –

(i) service in the public or private sector in the Federation in any capacity acceptable to the Independent National Electoral Commission for a minimum of ten years, and


(ii) attendance at courses and training in such institutions as may be acceptable to the Independent National Electoral Commission for periods totalling up to a minimum of one year, and

(iii) the ability to read, write, understand and communicate in the English language to the satisfaction of the Independent National Electoral Commission, and

(d) any other qualification acceptable by the Independent National Electoral Commission;”

The eighth wonder of the world would have been if any society that accepted this type of document to be the instrument of its governance had made it.



By this provisions of this Constitution, if a man appears before the electoral body and an official says “come” and he moves, he tells him to write “go” and he puts the two alphabets correctly and he says “bye” to him and he too says “bye officer”; he is eminently qualified to lead Nigeria.

The electoral body is at liberty to even accept a “qualification” according to its whims and caprices. If a candidate presents a “certificate “ from Tramadoll Academy in Sambisa Forest and INEC is satisfied with it, eligibility is assured.



By this weird provision a 10-year service as fuel attendant (private sector ) or 10 years as messenger (public sector) is enough to qualify for the No 1 job in the country.

The Presidential Election Tribunal should have interpreted the law as it is to do their job without behaving like the proverbial overzealous labourer who does more than a day’s work for a day’s pay; by going into all the legal somersaults of an affidavit being an article of faith and all the rest.

Discerning Nigerians should know by now that this country is going nowhere except we shred this Constitution and put an autochthonous one in its place.



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